This invention relates to a data recording medium, having plural recording areas thereon, a data recording method and apparatus for recording data on this recording medium, and a data reproducing method and apparatus for reproducing data recorded by the data recording method and apparatus.
Among certain multi-section optical discs, provided with a plural number of sections, each including a lead-in area, a program area and a lead-out area, there is such a one in which continuous addresses are provided across plural sections. Among other multi-section optical discs, there is such a one in which self-complete addresses are provided from one section to the next.
However, in an optical disc in which addresses lie across plural sections, it is necessary to ultimately match the addresses in authoring, by an extremely laborious operation, so that the addresses will be continuous from one section to the next. If addresses self-complete on the section basis are used, address data read out from the optical disc in reproducing the optical disc become the same in each section, such that there is a risk that it becomes impossible to discern from address data from which optical disc the address data in question has been read out.
In Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No-H-11-213562, there is disclosed an optical disc in which data is recorded on the inner rim side section with the same format as that used in the Compact Disc and in which data is recorded on the outer rim side section at a recording density higher than on the inner rim side section. In this optical disc, addresses are accorded in continuation from a program area of the outer rim side section to the lead-out area of the inner rim side section, while addresses which are based on the time information not used in the inner rim side section are used in the lead-in area on the outer rim side section.
In this optical disc, in which the addresses are accorded in continues fashion from the program area of the outer rim side section to the leadout area of the inner rim side section, it becomes difficult to discern which section is currently reproduced.
If there is a single-section optical disc in which the same format is used for the inner rim side section as that used for the outer rim side section in which the data is recorded with a high recording density, that is such a single-section optical disc in which data has been recorded at the high recording density in both the inner and outer rim areas, it is not possible for a reproducing apparatus to discern the single-section optical disc from an optical disc having the inner rim side section and the outer rim side section having the recording density higher than the recording density of the inner rim side section, if based solely on address data read out from the optical disc.